Child of Thought

May 21

Experience is the child of thought... Benjamin Disraeli

The truth spoken here by the great British Prime Minister, who happened to be born Jewish but was a practicing Anglican, is directly from the Bible which says, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he," Proverbs 23:7. It is irrefutably true that the thoughts we indulge will indeed shape our actions and greatly influence our experiences. With that in mind, we must resolve to think thoughts that challenge and up-lift, that encourage and inspire us.

Disraeli said many amazing things! Here are a few:

A precedent embalms a principle...This is profoundly true in most people. In having once experienced a certain outcome from a certain action, they are forever bound to anticipate it from future similar actions. Indeed, they are virtually powerless to alter the outcome once they are impacted by it. This can be for good or for ill, depending upon their original experience. For that reason, we must be sure we do not imprison ourselves within our prior experience but allow the Lord to change our thoughts and allow our improved perspective to assure us an improved result if former outcomes were less than desirable.

As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information...Disraeli was an early proponent of education. He knew the society in which the individual was allowed to thrive, to reach his fullest potential, was the one that would excel beyond all others. He understood that "to govern men, you must either excel them in their accomplishments, or despise them," and that a people was best advantaged who had the opportunity of being well-educated.

Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation...His definition here resonates because so much of what we see on TV and hear among friends and acquaintances in their conversations is well-articulated but totally unworthy of discussion. Who would bother to repeat the premise of a popular television program? News was made recently because a young star of a TV sitcom blasted his show as being 'filth.' Much of what we see and hear can be thusly categorized because we have become undiscriminating as a society. The old saying, 'garbage in/garbage out' applies to us. To separate ourselves from much that is popular within the culture is to our great advantage.

Cleanliness and order are not matters of instinct; they are matters of education, and like most great things, you must cultivate a taste for them...Disraeli speaks here of two very basic practices, but they are by no means alone in their importance or in the fact that left to ourselves we fall short of them. It takes diligent effort to maintain cleanliness and order and we are often too preoccupied with the busy-ness of our day-to-day activities to invest much time into achieving or maintaining them, so our lives become cluttered and the outcome to which we relegate ourselves is the thought child of a lesser experience.

May this day be one of thinking thoughts that spring from "the mind of Christ" that you have within you (I Corinthians 2:16) so the outcome of all your thinking may glorify Jesus, the One whose love sets you free from every negative thing that's ever happened to you and from every negative word that's ever been spoken to you.

May your mind be so surrendered to His today that you will be established on the path along which He desires to lead you; where you will have complete and fulfilling fellowship with Him and where the sweetness of each moment, each hour, each day, each year, each decade of your long, healthy, happy lifetime will be established in Jesus whose love for you overcomes the lack of any other love, and whose delight in you is complete.